2009 - 4th Quarter

Oct 02, 2009

To all our Centre Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to volume seven of the "Community Basis"
newsletter! This is one of our ways to communicate news and
innovation in community based research locally, nationally, and
internationally to our network, colleagues and friends.

Since our last e-news communication, we have been
involved in many exciting new projects and community engagements.
The Centre has been busy over the summer preparing for a range of
community events, conferences and forums occurring over the next
few months, not to mention our regular research activities. We
have also been busy with planning activities and collaborations
in preparation for CUExpo 2011 (The Community University
Partnership Conference) which will be hosted by CCBR in May 2011
in the Waterloo Region. Please
click here to view a flyer announcing this exciting
conference.

Please read on for some brief updates on what's
new at the Centre. This issue of Community
Basis also features one of our current projects
and two articles on the work we are doing. Our featured
project is Ethics in Community Based Research, written
by student researcher, Norah Love. Our first featured
article is entitled Reflections on theBelfast Living
Knowledge Conference, by Joanna Ochocka. Our second
featured project is the CURA Demonstration project, summarized by
Centre Researcher, Jocelyn Booton. But first some news from our
Centre...

The Community-Campus
Partnerships for Health (CCPH) is holding their 11th
Conference "Creating the Future We Want to Be", on May
12-15 2010, in Portland, Oregon, USA.Proposals are due Friday, October 16,
2009.

Winner of the 2009-2010 Helmut Braun Scholarship
Award

Amanda
Freeman-MacOwan (bottom right)

Congratulations to Amanda Freeman-MacOwan, this year's
recipient of the Helmut Braun Scholarship Award. The award
ceremony took place at CCBR on Friday, September
18th. This was another opportunity for our
community to come together and connect over a worthy cause and
good food! For more information about the Helmut Braun
Scholarship, please follow this link.

Congratulations to Centre staff!

We congratulate Jason Newberry on his new
position at the Centre as Research Director. Jason has been at
CCBR since 2003. And more congratulations to our two new Senior
Researchers, Elin Moorlag and Tanya Darisi. For more information
about the staff at CCBR, and their research interests and
backgrounds, please clickhere.

CUexpo2011, Bringing Global Perspectives to Local
Action

The Centre for Community Based Research, as lead
organization for the conference, is busily planning the Fourth
International Community-University Exposition set for May, 11-15,
2011. CUexpo2011 is a Canadian-led, international conference
designed to showcase the exemplars in Community-University
partnerships worldwide, and together to introduce creative ways
of strengthening our local communities. Complex social issues
require global perspectives to inform local action. The
Conference website: www.CUExpo2011.ca is under construction. Stay
posted for the launch.

New and Recent
Projects

CCBR continues to manage over 20 to 30 Community Based
research projects at any one time. A number of new projects were
developed at the end of 2008, contributing to and enriching our
diverse theme areas. Below are some examples:

Payday Lending: In Search of a Local
Alternative

The purpose of this research study is to look at the
nature of existing payday lending services and to explore the
possibility of a 'made-in-Waterloo' microcredit alternative to
payday lending. The project idea was initiated by staff at CCBR
and developed as a result of discussions with a community
partners. To read more, click here.

"Taking Culture Seriously in Community Mental Health" is a
5-year (2005-2009) Community University Research Alliance (CURA)
bringing together over 40 diverse university and community
partners in the Toronto and Waterloo regions of Ontario. Now in
its third and final phase, the focus of the CURA project is on
developing, implementing and evaluating innovative demonstration
projects.

Project Database

CCBR has expanded its searchable database for all
projects, associated publications and presentations. The database
now includes even more information on CCBR's work. To check out
the database, please click
here. Please also
note that our website now has a general search option at the top
of each page. This will allow users to search the entire content
of our website.

Staff Updates

CCBR has been very fortunate to welcome many new
excellent people to the CCBR family over the last little
while. Alongside these new arrivals, we have also had to
say a number of bittersweet goodbyes and good luck to staff who
are moving on to pursue graduate education or new career
paths.

Welcome to students Cara Dowhaniuk,
Alexis Buettgen, and Catherine Bailey. Cara is doing her
placement with us for her last year at Renison, BSW placement and
Alexis is completing her placement for the MA in Community
Psychology at Laurier. Catherine is doing an MSW placement
from Laurier University.

We are going to miss fomer staffers: Michelle Bissonette,
Jocelyn Booton, Sarah Lord, and Troy Rieck. We wish them all well
in all their future pursuits and adventures! To go to our staff
pages please clickhere.

Featured Project

In each issue of Community Basis, we profile a current
project to give our readers an idea of the type of work we engage
in here at CCBR. In this issue, we are pleased to
profile Ethicsin Community Based Research,
written by student researcher, Norah Love.

Ethics in Community Based Research

In January 2008, CCBR hosted an
open community meeting to discuss the need and vision for ethical
reviews of community based research in Waterloo Region. Since the
community meeting, the working group has been collaborating to
translate ideas into action. It was decided that a needs
assessment and feasibility study in the Waterloo Region would be
the most effective way to explore the issues, challenges and
dilemmas related to the practice of community-based research and
research ethics.

Featured Articles

In each volume of e-news, we present research
articles, theoretical perspectives, interviews, editorials, or
other written pieces related to the work we do and the social
issues we are concerned with. In this issue our first featured
article is entitled Reflections on theBelfast Living
Knowledge Conference, by Joanna Ochocka. Our second
featured article, written by Centre Researcher Jocelyn Booton,
discusses the CURA Demonstration project Leaders Mobilizing
Change.

Impressions from the Belfast Living Knowledge
Conference

From August 27-29 2009 Queen's
University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, hosted a
conference to mark the tenth anniversary of the Living Knowledge
Network. Living Knowledge is an international Science Shop
network, 'to promote and support public access to and influence on
science and technology', and in this manner moved beyond
promoting community-based research (CBR) to engaging the much
larger and far more conse­quential world of research. To read more click
here.

Leaders
Mobilizing Change

Leaders Mobilizing Change is a CURA
demonstration project about a workshop for leaders to make mental
health services more culturally responsive. The project's three
phases (each using a PAR approach) are the following: (1)
exploring diverse conceptualizations of mental health problems
and practice, (2) developing culturally effective practice, and
(3) evaluating demonstration projects. While 5 cultural
linguistic communities are actively involved (Somali, Sikh
Punjabi, Polish, Mandarin, Spanish Latin American), one of the
project's goals is to emphasize the transferability of knowledge
gained to all of multicultural Canada. Now in its third and
final phase, the focus of the CURA project is on developing,
implementing and evaluating innovative demonstration projects.
Read more.

New Publications

Our researchers continue to publish and disseminate
findings and issues associated with our research projects.
Here is a list of our most recent publications.